@cde123 there absolutely are professional cuddlers who are not doing it primarily for the money, but to help people. However, the money is still essential to the process: not to pay for the time or the risk or anything like that, but to make the entire process transactional. The transaction (i.e. the money) is vital in order to define the boundaries of the relationship. (Separately, the money is needed by the professional because they have rent to pay.)
For example, there is one professional I know very well. Our sessions used to be an hour and a half, the limit being imposed by my budgetary constraints. It was abundantly clear that this wasn't enough, and the professional - who recognises the importance of boundaries - was struggling to kick me out on time and I was struggling to go. The answer was to increase the session length to two hours, with only a nominal increase in the charge. She effectively offered me a substantial discount on a two hour session, because that's what I/we actually need. However, I had to pay. It didn't matter how little, I had to pay to maintain the boundary.
Offering an extra half hour without any charge would have disturbed the nature of the relationship and opened up a can clearly labelled "Pandora's box of transference issues, do not open".
@CuddleDuncan so true! Great explanation.
I have a one hour minimum if its within my driving range. If it's beyond that, the minimum time goes up along with travel costs.
I have a two-hour minimum for a several reasons.
From a business perspective one hour sessions are not sustainable. I host in offices rather than my home. One office is 30 minutes away, and the other is 40 minutes, and I also have to make the bed and get the room ready, which takes me 10-15 minutes. So I generally spend more than an hour between driving and preparing for the session, which does not include my time spent corresponding with each client and the zoom call. So I can easily spend two hours on a client outside of a session. I also have to be financially sustainable, and most days, I am only seeing one client, and I cannot survive on one billable hour a day, and it really sucks to turn down a longer session because I already have a one-hour session booked. For one-hour sessions to be sustainable, I would need several a day, and working with 3-4 clients daily is much more draining than 1-2 clients per day.
From a cuddle therapist perspective I find that one hour isn't enough time to get the benefits from the session. An hour often feels very rushed especially for new people when you are just getting to know each other. A lot of people are nervous and need time to ease into cuddling have two hours allows for someone to take their time. I always follow up with clients after their first session and the ones who only book one hour rarely say they feel better than before and even more rarely come back. While clients who book 2+ hours usually report feeling better and see enough benefits that they want to come back. Most people need at least two hours to relax and reset .
Its a big investment of my time, money and emotional energy to meet with a client and for the exchange to feel even, I need at least two hours so I can do my best work and not feel rushed. I give clients the opportunity to meet with me over zoom prior to committing to a session to avoid a situation where they want to leave early. For the vast majority of my clients, the time flies by and they are sad when it’s time to go.
I have a 2-hour minimum for in-person new clients. I'll do 1-hour for regulars who have established they don't flake if it is worth the travel and prep time.
One of the things I have learned over the years of doing multiple self-employed jobs is that people often underestimate the time, energy, and financial costs of travel and prep. My dance teaching gig last year I barely covered gas money and space rental teaching one day a week for 3 hours because I was only enrolling the minimum number of students necessary to cover costs and wasn't pressed to fill them due to exposure concerns. Same could be said for how I've calculated my cuddling rates for the most part - I certainly am not doing it to rake in the money 😅
Clients tend to look at our rates and think "omg why charge so much?", but they don't factor in the multitude of other factors that go into pricing beyond market value. Taxes take up the largest chunk, followed by insurance, gas, advertising, supplies, business licensing fees, professional continuing education (if going the certification route), etc. Add to it that most of us are not doing this as our full time job but as a side gig, and even if doing it "full time", it's not going to be 40 hour weeks the same way massage therapists cannot work 40 hour weeks usually, so our selfpay rate has to account for that. I also factor in sliding scale - my full rate allows for me to offer sliding scale to those who truly need it because that is a restorative justice business practice that is important to me.
To offset the lack of initial 1-hour appointments, I require free video consults when booking. Most people can generally get a good feel for how personalities will jive during a 30-minute video call the same they would in person. If that is not sufficient, I'm happy to meet more wary clients in person publicly if nearby. But what I will not do is waste my time and theirs by scheduling one hour slots sight-unseen or because they are trying to go cheap as possible when I am already under the area average.
Beyond that - I've found that generally 2 hours is necessary to really get comfortable with one another and have a chance to relax in each other's company, especially if a client is new to platonic cuddling or hiring a professional. It can take some people who are more shy, those who have touch trauma, anxiety, neurodivergents, etc. a half an hour or more just to open up and feel comfortable enough to really let their nervous system relax and trust a stranger in their space sometimes - so by the time 50 minutes is up and it's time to start coming out, we'd only just really be sinking in.
Personally, if it ever did happen that I met up with a new client and we just really weren't feeling it together in person, I would do my best to satisfy their wishes and honor my time both. Some things just aren't foreseeable and being flexible is a good thing. But this is extremely rare and I haven't had it happen yet in cuddle partners, and only a couple of times in other businesses. One creative way around it is to gift their remaining time to a friend or family member that they think might enjoy it more - I get a new client, they get some return for their investment even if not directly back to their wallet.